1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a roll-out shelving storage rack system. More particularly, the roll-out shelving storage rack system includes adjustable shelves that also substantially, completely extend and retract.
2. Description of the Related Art
In most modern businesses, space is at a premium. As such, businesses strive to maximize storage which reduces costs as well as allows for more profit per a given amount of space. A solution often employed by businesses involves the use of storage racks designed to increase the amount of storage at any given space. Storage racks that maximize space typically must satisfy three requirements; accessibility, adjustability, and robustness.
Storage racks have incorporated a storage shelf that has the ability to extend and retract to meet the accessibility requirement. The ability of the shelf to extend and retract allows an end user to visually examine what products or inventory are on a given shelf. In addition, this ability also allows accessibility to the end user allowing them to place and retrieve products or inventory more easily. The ability of the shelf to extend and retract is also useful to businesses that want to use an overhead crane to retrieve inventory rather than a forklift. If an overhead crane is used then the storage rack must have a shelf or shelves that extend and retract in order to retrieve inventory. However, one problem that has been encountered is that high capacity powered shelves in modern storage racks do not fully extend. In most applications a shelf cannot fully extend because some of the shelf must remain in the storage rack or else the shelf would fall out or would not be able to support adequate weight. The ability of a shelf to fully extend within a storage rack would be useful.
The ability of a storage rack shelf to extend or retract has traditionally been accomplished in one of two ways, using human power or pneumatic/hydraulics. The more weight that an extendable storage shelf can handle, the more beneficial it is to the end user. However, when the weight capacity of the storage rack is increased, this can cause problems. The more weight that is added to a shelf means more foot pounds to extend and retract a storage shelf. This can only be done up to a certain amount of weight until it is too dangerous for a human operator to manually extend or retract a storage shelf. Once this threshold has been reached, it becomes necessary to use hydraulics or pneumatics to extend and retract a shelf. Currently the highest capacity of any roll-out shelving manual rack system shelf on the market is 3000 pounds, and requires 25 pounds of force per 1000 pounds of load to extend the shelf from the rack. As stated above, pneumatics or hydraulics must be used when higher capacity extendable shelves are required. However, in the past, the use of hydraulics or pneumatics has comprised a rack system's accessibility and adjustability.
Another important feature that modern businesses require is adjustability. With different product lines and product mixes the ability to adjust the storage space to meet current needs is very useful. There are manually operated storage rack shelves that are adjustable, but currently there are no pneumatically powered storage racks with adjustable shelves.
In addition to the features mentioned above, storage racks must be robust. Many modern businesses operate heavy equipment, such as forklifts, and a storage rack needs to be robust enough to withstand an impact from such equipment to prevent an accident.
Accordingly, a storage rack system that is pneumatically powered, allows the shelves to be adjusted, allows the shelves to fully extend and retract, and maximizes the amount of space and weight a shelf can carry, while still being robust would be useful.